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Chris Telesca announces run to fill an upcoming vacancy for 1st Vice Chair of the Wake County Democratic Party

Submitted by WakeVerifiedVoting on Tue, 02/21/2012 - 23:06

My name is Chris Telesca, and I am currently a precinct Chair, SEC member, current District Coordinator and former House District Coordinator in the Wake County Democratic Party.

It's no secret that current 1st Vice Chair Lindy Brown is going to file to run for the NC House in what is already a contested primary. She announced she'll eventually resign at tonight's Wake Dems District Coordinator meeting. So I am hereby announcing my candidacy for 1st Vice Chair of the Wake County Democratic Party. I am asking for your vote whenever our county party schedules the election for that office. It might be in mid to late March, or it might not be until the April County Convention.

Some folks are concerned about Section 2.03 of the NCDP Plan of Organization. It requires the first vice chair must be of the opposite gender of the chair - except when filing a vacancy for an unexpired term. So my gender is not a problem.

The main area of responsibility of the 1st Vice Chair is party building and precinct organization. I've been passionately dedicated to partybuilding since my Howard Dean days in 2003 - and I believe that we cannot take back our county, state or county until we take back our party. And we can't take back our party until we organize all our precincts and involve every possible Democratic voter at the precinct level. Going into the 2012 election year, partybuilding and precinct organization are more important than ever before!

NC turned "blue" in 2008 largely due to the turnout in Wake County. I was part of that team of dedicated Wake County Democrats that organized and energized more of our precincts than ever before - 145 out of 198 - including working with both Clinton and Obama volunteers in early 2008 to organize previously unorganized precincts. I served as the Executive Officer of our 2008 GOTV committee under Coordinator Jeff Marsocci. I worked 5.5 months as a full-time volunteer where we had nearly 100% sign placement and poll greeter coverage at our precincts and early voting sites. We had greater voter turnout than Mecklenburg County even though they had more voters in 2008!

I've been a precinct chair since 2004, and a member of the State Executive Committee since 2006. I've also been very involved in election integrity work in Wake County and across the state. NCDP David Parker appointed me as the ad hoc chair of the NCDP Electoral Reform and Voter Protection Committee.

Both Doris Weaver and Blaise Strenn - the former Chair and 1st Vice Chair respectively during the 2008 election cycle - endorse my candidacy for 1st Vice Chair. I've been asked to run by several former and current party and elected public leaders, as well as some current candidates for public office. A full list of endorsements will be forthcoming. Whenever we have the election to fill the vacancy, I ask for your vote so that I may do more and better work building the party and organizing precincts in Wake County!

Comments

Chris Telesca led the push for 100% paper ballots in Wake County NC when the county election director was trying to sneak in touchscreens. Thanks to Chris's organizing, Wake has 100% paper today.

Chris created a campaign for optical scan systems which use voter marked paper ballots. He organized local activists, communicated with County Commissioners and Board of Elections, and prepared documentation to support paper ballots optically scanned. The printers on the touchscreens are not reliable and fail to print at least 9% of the time.

Chris was very persuasive and diligent and successfully mobilized activists in Wake County. Without his efforts, half of Wake County's votes would have been cast on DRE/touchscreens that only have a "toilet paper" style paper roll.

...Lindy Brown did not file to run. She will not have to resign from her seat on the Wake Democratic Party Executive Council. So unless she decides to do it on her own, it looks like I won't be running for her seat. Will keep you posted!

But thanks to everyone around NC who contacted me with encouragement and offers of support!

Apparently even though Wake Dems 1st Vice Chair Lindy Brown didn't file to run for an NC House seat, word is that she's still planning to resign as 1st Vice Chair. So until she gets off the fence one way or the other, I'm tentatively running for 1st Vice Chair of the Wake County Democratic Party!

That's why I dislike all this last-minute, hyper-manic, campaign-mode stuff that goes on at times like these. It makes it very hard for people to plan to take an active role in public affairs.

One thing that I can promise - if elected I will serve the rest of the term. I like to finish what I start - no matter when I start it!

Lindy Brown resigned from her seat as the 1st Vice Chair of the Wake County Democratic Party effective March 15. There are two candidates that I know of right now (myself and one other), so there will be a CEC meeting starting at 10 AM on April 14th at Ligon GT Magnet Middle School, 706 East Lenoir Street, Raleigh, NC 27604. Registration starts at 9 AM - please get there early so you won't miss any of the fun!

I believe that is the cnouty's argument, to use the existing map for the three non-Morman precincts. I presume the plaintiffs' counterargument would be the same as the one they have made in San Antonio against using the Lege-passed maps as starting points for the 2012 maps, which is that you can't use something that hasn't been precleared as a basis; that would imply using the existing map as a basis instead, which would then need to be tweaked to adjust for population. The latter situation, where the DOJ alleged discriminatory intent on the part of the state, may be different than the one here. I agree that using the map that the Commissioners passed for this cycle is a possible, maybe even likely, outcome. We'll see what the judge has to say.

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